Kevin Bacon 5 Posted March 13, 2006 They are / were indeed, but Northstar are fast taking over from Optima's reputation as being the ultimate battery. In typical yank style, Northstar conjured up a silly test to demonstrate their batteries. They basically took a fully charged one, shot it with a shotgun - blowing to pieces - but there was still enough current between the posts to start a truck! Those yanks and their guns.... My back had the painful pleasure of lifting a 90AH Northstar battery into a Bora's boot last week and the rear of the car visibly sunk and inch when the battery touched down. I don't think there is any fluid in this battery, it must be solid lead!! Anyway, I regularly blast my tunes during testing with the Optima (my amp draws 70 amps at max chat) for over an hour and it starts the car easily afterwards. Could never do that with my old Bosch silver. I had to use a workshop jump starter to get it going again. Odd that yours is draining the battery. I can leave mine for a month and it will start no probs. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bcstudent 0 Posted March 13, 2006 Yes, I'm very happy with the performance of the Optima right now. If I get three years of life from a £130 battery I'll be happy with that too. The whole 'short battery lead' affair was a pain but not the end of the world. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
dr_mat 0 Posted March 13, 2006 I'm guessing that your Optima is somewhat higher capacity than the 64Ah bosch then Kev..? If I get three years from the 64Ah Bosch I should be ecstatic then, considering they're only £40 in Costco! I think the thing is, you should buy the right battery for the right purpose. The Bosch silver is a starter battery, it's not designed to be discharged, at all. It's designed to deliver a big dose of current and start the car, then it should be immediately and completely recharged again. Running big ICE and stuff where you know you're going to drain a lot of current without running the engine, you really need a deep cycle battery - which is specifically designed to be discharged then recharged then discharged ... and so on. As for the current drain, I've heard many many people say that their car draws a constant 150-300 mA even when everything is turned off. That's only 3-5 watts or something, but over three weeks it's more than enough to flatten any battery. As for Northstar's stunt, I'm not sure that shooting at a battery means anything at all in terms of how long it's going to last ... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bcstudent 0 Posted March 13, 2006 I think his Optima is probably 55Ah. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
